Yesterday at 12:00 a.m, I was sitting in a cozily darkened theater alongside my boyfriend, watching the premiere of the third Batman movie, as were thousands of people across the country. It was a fantastic movie, and we were thoroughly engrossed in the ending scenes at 2:39 am. Snuggled up together and holding hands on those comfy movie theater seats, we had no idea that halfway across the country, people who had been just as excited as we were to see The Dark Knight Rises, and maybe had been just as snuggly and comfortable, were dying.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you know the story of what happened in Aurora, Colorado. It sounds like something out of a movie itself, with the darkly dressed villain calmly walking into the theater with one goal-to destroy life and cause chaos. Twelve people dead, about seventy more injured. Those are the numbers. It’s sad enough to see like that, but even more so when you think about how each of those twelve people had lives and families and friends who, because of one person, will never laugh with them, or hug them, or talk to them again. They are gone forever, at least in this life depending on what you believe. As more and more information keeps coming in about these murders, one cannot help but question: what would convince a person that it’s acceptable to take so many lives? And I cannot claim to know the answer to this, but here’s the best I can come up with to help me understand what happened.
Being somewhat hardcore fans, my boyfriend and I didn’t just go to the midnight showing. We were in the marathon theater, where all three movies were shown in a row, over the course of seven hours. Because of this, the movies and characters are fresh in my mind, with one in particular: The Joker. Batman’s arch nemesis, the Agent of Chaos. In the second movie, the Joker pontificates on chaos. Among other things, he says “Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair! “ I believe that this gunman took the Joker’s words to heart. He sees himself as an agent of chaos. From what I’ve read, the police have not been able to figure out a motive for this man’s actions. I do not believe they are going to find one. This man did not have a motive. As Alfred the butler puts it, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” I think it’s fair to say that James Holmes identified strongly with the Joker. For one thing, he attacked those who were fans of Batman. He also had a well thought out plan, involving gas and booby-trapping his home. And maybe, in a disturbing and twisted way, he believed that what he was doing was fair- that those who died deserved to.
During the same scene as the quote above, the Joker also says, “You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds! “ This is exactly what has happened. People die every day in war and conflicts, but when things don’t go according to plan- in this case when twelve people lie dead in a movie theater, everyone panics. Panic is part of chaos and it’s quite possible that Holmes was thinking of this while he was planning his attack. He constructed it in a way that would cause the most panic and disruption to everyday life. I do not think it will ever be truly possible to understand how people like Holmes operate. But, I will not be surprised if the police cannot figure out a logical motive for the attacks. The motive was: Cause chaos. Kill people. Cause anarchy.
I can admit that I won’t be able to relax in a movie theater now for quite a while. During the previews before the movie started, there was one for an upcoming film called Gangster Squad. The trailer showed a scene where men fired guns into a crowded movie theater, causing chaos. It gave me the chills, not because of any premonition -like senses, but because that’s not something you want to watch while sitting in a theater. Now it gives me chills because the people in Aurora saw the same trailer and had no clue that about thirty-nine minutes later, the film would come to be reality. The thought actually crossed my mind that if that kind of killing was going to happen, then The Dark Knight Rises would be the movie for it to happen at, mostly because of the Joker and scenarios he created. I quickly shoved the thought away though because it was scary and stupid, and it only came to me because I had just watched the movie. After all, things like mass murder don’t happen at movie theaters...or at least, they didn’t.
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